


the red that is

by vtn



Category: Chihayafuru
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 18:51:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1097425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtn/pseuds/vtn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>In her dreams Chihaya’s name is red, a piercing flash of light amidst the darkness, a flare going up somewhere out in the night.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Ayase Chihaya is breaking Shinobu’s concentration.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	the red that is

**Author's Note:**

  * For [furiosity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/furiosity/gifts).



> aaaaah Chihaya/Shinobu is the best thing ever and I am so happy I got to write it for someone for Yuletide. My darling cute awkward karuta girls who have no idea how to deal with their emotions. I hope you enjoy this story and that you have a very happy holiday season filled with poetry and snow. :D

In her dreams Chihaya’s name is red, a piercing flash of light amidst the darkness, a flare going up somewhere out in the night.

Ayase Chihaya is breaking Shinobu’s concentration.

\---

“You should send something to the little girl who was injured,” Shinobu’s grandmother tells her. Little girl? Then in her mind Shinobu sees Ayase Chihaya’s red hair, her long limbs, and feels her face fill with heat. 

She presses the back of her hand against her forehead to see if her fever is flaring up again. 

Later, Shinobu delicately wraps a pack of cookies with a cute frog character on the front, her hands shaking as she folds down the flap on the cardboard box. She took one cookie and ate it, so she could share something with Ayase. She still doesn’t know why, but she likes the thought of imagining Ayase’s hands touching something she touched.

When she’s tied the bow on the box, she lies down on the bed, staring at the ceiling, her mind spinning. She’s dizzy with a feeling she cannot name.

\---

When Ayase and her friends have their holiday party, it snows. Shinobu was invited, and she said yes. Somehow she’s drawn to Ayase Chihaya like a magnet to its opposite pole.  
She tells her grandmother she’s going to visit her aunt and uncle, her whole body still buzzing with the lie as she boards the bus. She watches the snowflakes whirl past and wonders where they are going, if they too have found their heading.

The party is a rushing blur of faces and voices, and Ayase is an anchor, her image clear. She takes Shinobu’s hand between her own and warms her frozen fingers.

“Shinobu-chan! Thank you so much for the cookies!” Her eyes are wide and wet. Shinobu looks straight into them, and nods. Then she remembers the box with the frog, and the girl in the hospital they were meant for. 

Still gripping Shinobu’s hand, Ayase turns and greets someone else who’s arrived at the party. Then she looks back to Shinobu. “Once everyone’s arrived and settled in...I know I said we wouldn’t play until the Queen match, but...will you play karuta with me?”

“No,” Shinobu snaps immediately. This is something that must be earned. 

But then she remembers the moments of clarity when she played with Ayase before. Ayase’s karuta isn’t beautiful, isn’t graceful, but in those moments when she takes one of her sweet cards, it was played with furor. Ayase may only feel it a little, but she is drawn to the cards too, like Shinobu. And in those moments, Shinobu felt joy.

“Another day,” Shinobu says, her voice almost a whisper. “Another day we’ll play karuta. And I’ll win, of course.”

Ayase’s grin is wide, and it makes Shinobu smile. “I’ll play my hardest!” she promises. And then, as if suddenly remembering, she lets go of Shinobu’s hand.

The night passes by too fast for Shinobu to hold onto it all, but what stays with her is: the marshmallows melting in her cup of cocoa; the crowd she can disappear into without anyone watching to see her next move; the warmth of Ayase Chihaya’s palms.

\---

The Ayase home is nothing like Shinobu’s own. Where her grandmother keeps a Spartan house, traditional and neat, the little apartment is colorful and loud, with smells of food in the kitchen and a clutter of objects on every surface. The TV hums in the background. 

“Everyone!” Chihaya shouts, her face flushing red as she raises Shinobu’s arm to the sky, thumb and forefinger circled around Shinobu’s wrist. “This is my friend Shinobu.” 

The shouting embarrasses Shinobu but doesn’t seem to faze Chihaya’s family. Her mother waves with a friendly smile; her sister lamely raises a hand and says, “Okay.”

“Okay, we’re going to play karuta now!” Chihaya shouts again. 

“They aren’t looking at us,” Shinobu says softly. Chihaya just looks confused.

“Why would they be?” and Shinobu’s world tilts a little on its axis.

\---

Shinobu can’t help shrieking with delight when she enters Chihaya’s room. Her bed is piled with cute animal toys. Shinobu picks up a Daddy Bear and squeezes it close to her. She breathes in - it smells familiar. Like Chihaya, she realizes. 

She sets the bear down and starts to sit next to her on the floor, but Chihaya shouts for her to stop. Delicately, Chihaya rolls out a tatami mat and pulls her hair up into a ponytail. Then she reaches into a drawer and takes out her pack of cards. One by one, she lays them down, in absolute focus.

Shinobu settles in to the sound of the voice on the tape, gets to know the reader’s contours and tones. Then the first poem is read and she’s off, immersed in the game, taking cards when her body tells her to. The world closes in and it’s just her and the cards again.

And then: “Same!”

Shinobu sits up like she’s jolting awake from a dream. Chihaya is holding up a card, an intense expression on her face. A bead of sweat rolls down her forehead.

“It was on my side so I get to keep it,” Chihaya says triumphantly.

“You know this reader well,” Shinobu says. Chihaya balls up her fists and puffs her cheeks.

“Heeyy, I still got the card fairly.” It wasn’t meant as an insult, but Shinobu doesn’t protest. The reader has just read the end of the poem, so she closes her eyes and waits.

Minutes later, another jolt: Chihaya’s fingers grazing her wrist, just inches behind her. 

(Shinobu isn’t sure when she started to address Ayase Chihaya familiarly in her mind, but now Chihaya is someone known to her. Or someone she wants to know.)

“Close,” Shinobu whispers.

For the rest of the game, Shinobu doesn’t completely focus. Now she also waits, waits for a card Chihaya knows almost as well as she does, waits for that brush of fingertips again.

In the end she wins, but Chihaya takes a few cards from her. Breaking her concentration, if only momentarily, every time.

“Thank you for the game.” The two girls bow to each other. The track on the tape ends, and Chihaya gets up to stop it. For a moment she looks lost in thought, reviewing the game in her mind, perhaps.

“I can’t believe it,” Chihaya finally says. “Only three cards.” She groans, her fists raised to the sky in frustration. Shinobu watches with interest as she sways back and forth and then slowly sinks to the floor and begins snoring.

\---

Shinobu watches Chihaya sleep, her head resting against the tatami. She feels the reeds press into her own knees, a reminder that the world still exists around them. For how long, she doesn’t know, but she doesn’t take her eyes off the gently breathing girl across the mat from her.

And then Chihaya stirs, and wakes.

“Oh, you’re still here,” she says sleepily, as she lifts her head. “I’m glad.” Her cheek is printed with a fading thatch. And then she shakes all over and jolts fully awake. “Oh no, I fell asleep! I’m so sorry!” She scrambles around for a few minutes, and then her gaze meets Shinobu’s and holds. She grabs Shinobu’s hands and -

\- and then she’s pulling away, and Shinobu realizes that Chihaya just kissed her.

Chihaya stares. “Why did I just do that?” she asks.

Shinobu’s mind is a blizzard. “You should do it again,” she finds herself saying. “I want to remember.”

This time, Shinobu savors the feeling of Chihaya’s lips on her own, and when she closes her eyes, the storm behind her eyes fades and all she sees is red.

\---

“Do you think I’ll face you in the Queen match?” Chihaya says, not nearly for the first time. They’ve been on the train for hours and Chihaya has been feeding Shinobu snacks, dozing on Shinobu’s shoulder, practicing her swing, and, every once in a while, eagerly squeezing Shinobu’s hand.

“I’m getting so sick of you asking that,” Shinobu jokes. “Are you trying to wear me down so you can beat me?” She elbows Chihaya in the ribs.

“Owww!” Chihaya clutches her side. “Are you sure you don’t practice karate in your spare time, _Shinobi_?” 

“That isn’t funny,” Shinobu says, sticking out her tongue. 

“It isn’t?” Chihaya looks a little crushed. Shinobu pats her on the shoulder, she hopes reassuringly, and Chihaya smiles.

That smile isn’t a distraction anymore. It’s just another point of focus.

The train rolls into the familiar station where Shinobu will try to defend her title for the third year in a row. This time it’s she who squeezes Chihaya’s hand.

“We’re going to do our best!” Chihaya says.

“Yes,” Shinobu says, “But only one of us can win.” 

Chihaya’s look turns to one of concern. “Please don’t feel bad if I beat you!” she says. “I don’t know what I would do!” She glances back and forth, like the answer will appear somewhere on the horizon. “What do I do, what do I do…”

“It’s not going to matter,” Shinobu says. “It won’t happen.” 

“Aaaugh,” Chihaya groans. “You keep saying that.”

“But,” Shinobu goes on, only suddenly realizing it herself, “If you do...to get to play with you, and learn how to improve from watching you...it would be fun.”

“I didn’t know you knew how to have fun!” Chihaya jokes, elbowing Shinobu. Her revenge.

Shinobu still doesn’t laugh. “When I’m with you it becomes clear.”

\---

Shinobu watches Chihaya’s back recede as she runs ahead to catch up with her friends from her school, and once again she’s brought back to that autumn day, standing on the steps of her home and crying out for the only friend she’d ever had.

She sees Satoko sometimes when she looks at Chihaya. The burnished red of her hair. Her wide eyes, her constant laughter. 

Heat swells in her and she calls out: “Chihaya-chan!”

Chihaya stops running and turns around, shouting, “Come on, Shinobu-chan, catch up!” And as Shinobu races toward her, the memories fall away like autumn leaves, and all that’s left is Chihaya standing in front of her, and smiling.


End file.
